Off to the east of what we call the rose corral sits a greenhouse about half the size of our regular greenhouses. It was abandoned by a former tenant this Spring. I jumped on the opportunity to turn it into my own private garden. North of the power lines, our greenhouses are numbered from west to east beginning with zero. That makes this Greenhouse 5.
My irrigation mainline runs just this side of the front. It was easy to tap in to provide a source for an indulgence of drip irrigation. Drip irrigation is like tinker toys for adults: it has all the little snap together parts, but it makes something useful.
Last year had a rip off of a Summer. Crops of all sorts failed here in Western Oregon because it never got hot. Our rose propagation here at the nursery was nearly a complete failure. This year isn't shaping up any better - it's one of the coolest wettest Springs in my memory. So I'm not leaving the hot weather crops to chance. I want to grow melons, so I figure I'd better do it in a greenhouse. The east floor of the greenhouse is dedicated to miniature watermelons.
The center bench is for my peppers. These are mostly variants of bell peppers with a few interesting hot ones is the rear. I've found that as I've gotten older, I have less tolerance to the really hot peppers that I used to grow long ago.
I've gotten frustrated over the years that slugs, birds and nutria eat our strawberries before we do. So I've got eight hanging pots dedicated to keeping my strawberries unmolested.
This will be a big tomato year - all of our tomato plants will be in greenhouses. We won't be having any more of this waiting until mid October for tomatoes to ripen. The front windows of the greenhouse are crowded with tomatoes. Some a just starts, others that we moved from one of the other greenhouses are already starting to show fruit.
In the northeast corner there is a huge volunteer flowering tobacco. It is heavily fragrant in the evenings - in the closed quarters of the greenhouse, it is nearly too much.
Beyond the front glass is a field of squash being grown under protective row covers. To the right, but not yet visible are long rows of corn.
I'm excited to have had the time over the Memorial Day weekend to set up this gift of a greenhouse. I'm going to enjoy watching this place turn into an overgrown riot over the next four months. I'll post more photos as it grows.
